


What Lucretia Didn't Write Down

by LadyVin



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Drabble, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Team as Family, character death mentioned but not in any significant way, i didn't feel like giving them all a tag, it's really just lucretia here gang, the others are mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 22:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVin/pseuds/LadyVin
Summary: It has been said that “perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” And Lucretia is as close to a perfect writer as anyone could possibly be.There are some things that never got written down in Lucretia's journals.





	What Lucretia Didn't Write Down

Sometimes, a story is not what is written down. Sometimes, a story lies hidden between the lines, lost in what isn’t said. It has been said that “perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” And Lucretia is as close to a perfect writer as anyone could possibly be.

Some of what Lucretia leaves out of her journals is simply out of respect for her family. Helping the normally stoic Davenport through his third panic attack this cycle because they’re only a month in but they’re down to 3 people and a half-functioning ship is, while important, not something that he would ever want other people knowing about. She doesn’t write about the time that Lup had gotten so angry at a decision the crew had made after she had died that she only talked to Taako for the rest of the cycle. Lucretia doesn’t write about all of the nights spent exhausted but restless; nights that she had to go to Taako to have him cast sleep on her. She doesn’t write about how Barry only cries late at night when he thinks that no one else can hear because he doesn’t want his family to feel like they have to help him, doesn’t want to be a burden.

Some of it, she doesn’t write because she wants it to just be theirs. Originally, she was chronicling the journey to turn into the IPRE command when they returned, so that their scientific findings could be published. Her words were to be read and analyzed and quoted by every scientific mind on their planet for generations to come. Those thousands of people didn’t need… no, didn’t deserve to know about all the times Barry had laughed so hard at something the twins said that he cried projectile tears. They wouldn’t know intimately the feeling of Magnus’ arms wrapped tight around you when you’re both stuck outside in the coldest weather you’ve ever felt. They had jokes that would need an entire book of their own just to understand; little, innocuous words like “rice paddies” that would have the entire crew on the ground in stitches for reasons that were completely incomprehensible to anyone else. The rest of the world doesn’t deserve the finer details of a private cooking lesson from Taako, the way he blends technique with history and emotion and pizzazz, the way he can talk for hours about food with bright eyes and perked ears, excited in a way that he rarely shows openly.

And some of what Lucretia never wrote was because no one else could possibly understand. The feeling of being torn apart into the very bonds that create you is a feeling that is impossible to put into words, even for someone like Lucretia. The feeling of being nothing, and everything, and everywhere and everywhen all at once; the feeling of being a part of something, inextricably linked to the six people around you and then—suddenly, you’re yourself again, feeling oddly alone despite being surrounded by the closest family you’ve ever been a part of. How should Lucretia explain what it feels like to die? How does she explain what it feels like to die the tenth time in 40 years? How does she explain the feeling of looking down and seeing perfectly smooth, flawless skin when she knows that she should be as scarred and imperfect as the moon? She runs her fingers over her stomach, expecting to feel pockmarks and craters and gashes, old stitches and burns; her nose should be crooked, her fingers gnarled and calloused. Lucretia isn’t even sure how old she is anymore. She feels old, and young, and neither all at the same time. She looks 18, still. She feels timeless. In all the century, the only way she could think to describe it is moving from a desert to an island in the middle of a lake. After years of hoarding every bit of water, being careful not to waste anything, desperately trying anything to find even just one more drop, suddenly she has too much of it. Suddenly she’s drowning in it. Suddenly she wants less of it, _needs_ less of it, because it’s overwhelming and terrifying, freeing her from the hours she used to spend searching for it but keeping her trapped in one place. Lucretia could write that in her journals. It’s a pretty enough metaphor. But in the end, it’d just be words on a page that someone she has never nor will ever meet will write their own paper on, assuming themselves an expert on the IPRE’s journey, just because they read the same books everyone else read. They’d never know what it feels like trying to live 100 different lives in 100 different planes, learning how 100 different worlds work while constantly on the run from certain death. They’d never know what it feels like to stop caring about your own family’s death, because_ it’s ok. They’ll be back in a month_.

Words are wonderful, they are what Lucretia has built her life around, but if the century has taught Lucretia anything, it’s that everything in every world has its limits, and Lucretia is a realist. She knows that whatever she writes will be legend, no matter where they end up. With her writing combined with this journey, how could it not? She knows that she cannot escape the public eye, cannot live as a ghostwriter any longer. Whatever she writes in these journals will be hers, linked inextricably to her name, widespread public knowledge. She knows this, and so she knows that sometimes, the story is not what is told, but what is lived.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Jordie and Claudia for inspiring this one!! It was Loving Lucretia O'Clock a few weeks ago and I got emotional and wrote this on one go
> 
> Quote at the beginning is by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
> 
> Anyway I'm gonna go finish writing a paper, be sure to like & comment if you enjoyed! You can find me on tumblr @daughterofsarenrae
> 
> Love y'all! <3


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